Back to the Republic/Chapter1
Back to the Republic
Chapter I
THE TREND OF GOVERNMENT
THE trend of government may be presented in graphic form as follows:
| From earliest times to 1788 A.D. Experimental failures. From 1788 to 1900 A.D. Progress. From 1900 to 1920 A.D. Retrogressive tendencies. |
During the thousands of years prior to 1788 A.D. the pendulum of government was swinging back and forth from one extreme to the other: from the mob leader to the mob; from the mob to the monarch; from the monarch to democracy; from democracy to the demagogue; from the demagogue to mobocracy; from mobocracy to autocracy; from feudalism to communism; from bondage to license.
Tyranny, conquest, militarism, lawlessness, mobmindedness, riot, persecution, oppression, rebellion—these are the words that describe the long-continued panorama of unsuccessful efforts and experimental failures in government for approximately seven thousand years.
Now and then a ray of light and hope appeared in Greece, Rome, Holland, Switzerland, England and elsewhere, but during all that period of time no government was devised that could secure for its people any one of the great fundamental privileges for which government is primarily organized.
In all those thousands of years there was no government that secured for its people religious freedom, or civil liberty, or freedom of speech, or freedom of the press, or security of individual rights, or popular education, or universal franchise.
It is a startling statement, but an indisputable fact, that in reviewing the centuries of history prior to the founding of the republic of the United States of America we find no country to which the historian can point and truthfully say: There was a government that worked well.
In 1787 a group of real statesmen of great physical vigor, mental acumen, thorough knowledge, practical wisdom, far-sighted vision and moral courage assembled in Philadelphia and after months of discussion and deliberation produced the Constitution which provided for the republic of the United States of America.
These men were equal to the opportunity, rose to the occasion, and builded better than they knew; for they established the golden mean and evolved the standard form of government.
Following the adoption of the Constitution and the founding of the republic of the United States of America there began the first great era of progress governmentally that the world had ever known.
We began to solve problems and to secure privileges that had baffled philosophers and statesmen for ages. Within a century we had secured all of the seven fundamental privileges for which government is primarily organized. We developed a larger galaxy of great statesmen (because they were thinking and working along standard lines) than has been developed by all other governments in the history of mankind. We organized into a splendid and loyal citizenship people of many nationalities, coming to our shores with varying ambitions and ideals. We stood the strain of the great Civil War and came out of it stronger and better.
The governmental atmosphere of individual security seemed to stimulate individual effort toward discovery and invention, so that we made material and commercial progress that has had no parallel in history. We advanced from the wooden spade to the steam plow, from the ox-cart to the freight train, from the blacksmith shop to the great manufacturing plant, from the flail to the steam thresher, from the cradle to the self-binder, from the needle to the sewing-machine, from the spinning-wheel to the great textile mills, from the stage coach to the Pullman palace car, from the messenger boy on foot or horseback to the telephone and telegraph, from the prairie schooner to the automobile. And equal progress has been made along many other lines since the founding of this republic.
While doing all this we advanced from the education of the few to the great public-school system, from slavery to political equality, from religious bondage to religious liberty.
Other nations of the world were struck with awe and admiration by the marvelous manner in which the new republic was solving its problems and securing to its people political privileges such as the world theretofore had not known.
Awe and admiration on the part of the people of foreign countries merged into emulation, and they began to modify their ideals and ideas of government, gradually becoming more tolerant of religious freedom, more zealous of civil liberty, more lenient toward freedom of speech and of the press, more considerate of inherent individual rights, more active toward popular education, and more favorable toward universal franchise.
We radiated over all the world the rays of light, of hope, of progress, of justice, of common sense and of scientific governmental procedure; and while making that matchless record, and wielding that splendid world influence, we made for the United States of America the undisputed leading place among the nations, not because of our great army, our great navy, our vast possessions, or our many people, but because we were enjoying the blessings of the best form of government mankind had ever known.
Gradually, however, we began to modify our national government through the appointment of boards and commissions, and the creation of various governmental agencies that made it impossible for the government to function in accordance with the plan of the Constitution.
The various States modeled their constitutions less and less after the plan of the Federal Constitution and included in them much that should properly have been statutory material. In their constitutions they provided for the election of officials other than the executive and members of the legislative bodies. More and more we drifted away from the moorings of the Constitution toward the whirlpools of a democracy.
Demagogues and propagandists, blinded with egomania, kept up a constant campaign of agitation in the various States for the initiative, referendum, recall, boards, commissions, city managers, socialistic doctrines and anarchistic heresies, until we may truthfully say that for some years we have been passing through an age such as Alexander Hamilton had in mind when he said: "There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth, and in populous communities especially the clamor of interested and factious men is often mistaken for patriotism."
In his popular work, "The American Commonwealth," written about thirty years ago, when boards and commissions were not so prevalent and we were still adhering more strictly to the standard form of government, Mr. Bryce wrote as the opening sentence in Chapter I: "What do you think of our institutions?' is the question addressed to the European traveler in the United States by every chance acquaintance." That question was asked with an unusual degree of pride. Imagine, if you can, an intelligent American of today making, with any degree of pride, the following inquiries of European travelers:
What do you think of our Ohio and Oklahoma State constitutions?
What do you think of presenting a ballot to the voter containing the names of 334 candidates, or a ballot over six feet long covered with printed matter upon which a vote is to be cast within two minutes of time?
What do you think of having 128 boards and commissions in a single State in addition to an executive, two legislative bodies and seven other elective officials?
What do you think of our more than doubling the expenses of government in nearly every State in the Union during the decade from 1903 to 1912?
What do you think of spending over $2,000,000 of the taxpayers' money on primaries and elections in Cook County, Illinois, in the single year of 1916, aside from the personal expenses of the horde of candidates?
What do you think of our enacting over 62,000 new statutes in this country during the five-year period from 1909 to 1913, inclusive, and of our having over 65,000 decisions of courts of last resort during those same five years, and compiling 631 large volumes of decisions?
These are only a few of the many questions that might be asked because we have been drifting away from the plan of a republic.
The conditions that have been wrought through these departures, this reckless agitation, and the enactment of approximately fifteen thousand new statutes each year, have had a disastrous effect upon this country and resulted in greatly lessening our influence for good in other countries. We have drifted from the republic toward democracy; from statesmanship to demagogism; from excellent to inferior service. It is an age of retrogressive tendencies.